Joe Benvenuto spent four years perfecting the “top-down” superstructure construction technology of LIFTbuild before work began in 2022 on Exchange, a 207-ft-tall residential mid-rise in Detroit.

This letter is a rebuttal to online comments posted by Michael McNally and Robert T. Williams in response to the cover story, “From the Top Down” (ENR 10/31-11/7/22, p. 18), and its associated sidebar about TGE Top Down LLC, where I am chairman.

In 2018, EPC contractor TGE Top Down delivered a $112-million, 10-story, 621,000-sq-ft office building in Bangalore, India, using a patented top-down building system.

Top-down construction—assembling the floor of a building on the ground and lifting it into place—has long presented a possible alternative to the labor-intensive process of building steel frames, floors, walls and all components at height.